


Forever

by itchyfingers



Series: The Willa and Chris Stories [3]
Category: Chris Pine - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Infertility, Love, Minor Character Death, Past Infidelity, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:32:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willa's life is crumbling, but if she is going to rebuild it, she has to make a decision about her future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song “Forever” by Matt Hires

Chris sat in the back row of chairs. His black suit blended in with all the other somber attire. It was a sunny day, which seemed completely out of place. It was supposed to rain at funerals, wasn’t it? Or at least be overcast and gloomy?

Willa sat in the front row next to her father. Her siblings were in front as well, each with their spouses, forming a protective wall around their father. Even after all these years he could still identify Duncan, Emily, and Laura by the back of their heads. Pairing each of her siblings off meant that the man on the other side of her was Jonathan. His presence would explain why Chris hadn’t heard from her since that morning six months ago when he had told her he loved her. She must have worked out her problems with her husband, and though part of him was happy for her, another part hated Jonathan even more than he had when she had broken down in his arms in that hotel suite on the other side of the country.

Her hair was a bit longer now and shone like copper in the sunshine. He could see her dab her eyes with a tissue as the eulogy was read, and the sunlight glinted off the small diamond on her hand. Jonathan put his arm around her and she leaned into him. The program crumpled in Chris’s fist and he hastily smoothed it back out, rubbing it flat against his thigh to have something to look at besides the way that Jonathan’s short brown curls meshed with Willa’s copper hair. He kept his head down for the rest of the service, only looking over at his mother when she patted his shoulder comfortingly.

As difficult as the funeral had been to sit through, the gathering at Willa’s parents’ house afterwards was worse. If he hadn’t been for his parents insisting that he observe the amenities, he wouldn’t have come. Seeing Jonathan standing with her, keeping his hand on her back, hugging her between accepting condolences from all the mourners was like repeatedly stepping barefoot on broken glass. He wandered between the groups of people filling the familiar rooms, chatting for a few moments with the friends of his parents, lingering with his friends from high school who were also Willa’s friends. Enough of them were still in the area that it made for a macabre reunion. More than once he heard the comment that they’d finished seeing each other at weddings and now they would be running into each other at funerals.

Finally, he saw Willa standing alone and approached her. Her smile was formal and distant. She had seen him earlier and her eyes had skittered away like he was something distasteful, but he wanted to at least convey his condolences before he left.

“I’m so sorry, Willa.” He wanted to hug her, but she made no move towards him. She even crossed her arms over her chest, clutching an almost empty wine glass in one pale hand. He didn’t know if it was grief or the black dress that was washing her out, but she looked exhausted. Maybe this had been a bad idea. She had seen him. She knew he was here. If she wanted to talk – which she obviously didn’t – she would have approached him.

“Thank you for coming.” She’d said the words so often this afternoon that they didn’t even sound real anymore. Instead they were meaningless syllables offered by rote.

“The service was beautiful. The music and the flowers especially.”

Willa smiled inanely and offered option C on her menu of polite responses to the formal pleasantries proffered by people who didn’t know what to say as they watched your world fall apart. “It was what she wanted. She spent the last few weeks planning her funeral, right down to the wine list.” She waved the glass at him and the dregs sloshed around the bowl.

“She always did throw the best parties.” Chris was about to remind Willa of the time they had gotten drunk on the eggnog at one of her mother’s Christmas soirees when he was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

“Well, that didn’t take long.”

Willa grimaced and turned to the man who had joined them. “Jonathan, please, not here.”

“Was her body even cold before you called him?”

Willa recoiled like she had been slapped. The only thing keeping her from throwing her drink in his face was that her mother would have been horrified. Not by throwing the drink – her mother had tossed a few libations at deserving targets in her years – but by wasting that good of a wine. “How  _dare_  you,” she hissed. “I didn’t call him.”

“Then why is he here?”

Jonathan had angled his back towards Chris, cutting him out of the conversation. Chris wanted to punch him in the kidney but restrained himself. Willa went for a verbal attack. “Half of my high school class is here, Jonathan. So are his parents. It’s a  _funeral_ , for fuck’s sake, not an illicit liaison.”

“I had hoped…” He tugged at the front of his hair. “I’m sorry, love. That was uncalled for. It’s just things had been so much better and I had hoped…” Again he trailed off and then he straightened his tie. “Can I get you something to eat?”

Willa shook her head. “I’m going to go check on my dad.” She shoved her wine glass into Jonathan’s hand and stalked off towards the back of the house. The two men looked at each other. Both had things they wanted to say, but both of them knew a funeral wasn’t the place to say them. They grimaced an approximation of a smile at each other and departed in separate directions.

It was an about an hour later that Chris found Willa again. He had been looking at the framed photos that decorated the stairwell and when he got to the top of the stairs he saw that her bedroom door was open. Out of a sense of nostalgia, he walked down the hallway to look inside and found her sitting on her bed, staring out the window at the trees that framed her backyard. He tapped lightly on the door.

She turned around and managed to smile. It took effort, but at least the emotion behind it was genuine. “Now  _this_ will look like an illicit liaison.”

Chris smiled and leaned in the doorway. He wouldn’t go into her room. The memories from the photos were strong enough without adding to them by entering the room they had spent so much time in together. Besides, another man’s shoes were on the floor by the bed and a jacket that Willa would never wear was slung over the back of the desk chair. “I wasn’t trying to disturb you. I was looking at the pictures and then saw the door was open and…” He shook his head. “Are you okay? I mean, other than the obvious, are you okay?”

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, actually. I know she’s gone, but most of me feels like she’s on a vacation, and she’ll be home in a few weeks with new stories and new books.”

“Can I get you anything? Have you eaten yet?”

That earned him a weak smile. “Now you sound like Jonathan.”

Chris stiffened and tugged at the front of his suit coat, making sure it was lying correctly. “I’m sorry. I should leave taking care of you to your husband.”

Willa twisted her wedding ring around her finger a few times and then pulled it off. “I guess I don’t need to keep that on anymore.”

Chris stared at the gold band as she angled it back and forth in the sunlight streaming in the window. “Are you and Jonathan…” Again his voice trailed off. He hadn’t sounded this unsure of himself since the first time he had asked her on a date.

“Divorced? No. Not yet, at least. It’s just a matter of time though.”

“I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes and tossed the ring on her desk. “Yeah, right.”

“No, really. You love him. That can’t be easy.”

Willa looked at him silently for a while, judging whether or not he was being sincere. She couldn’t find any sign of dissemblance in his behavior though, as odd as it seemed. “We went to counseling. We tried working it out but neither one of us could budge. Or would budge. Same thing in the end.  I imagine everything will be over in a few weeks. Then I can move back in here for real and start all over again.”

“The commute’s going to be killer. Even worse than from Gilroy.”

“It won’t matter. I’m losing the store.” She looked away from him, but Chris noticed that her thumb kept rubbing against the spot on her finger where her ring had been.

“What?”

“Jonathan co-signed the loan for me, and I don’t have enough assets to buy out his share of the store, so I’m going out of business as part of the divorce settlements.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

Willa turned back to him. Here was the man who would give her anything she wanted and her husband was downstairs, keeping her from the two things she loved. Her marriage was ending. Her career was almost over. Her mother was dead. “Life isn’t fair.”

Chris finally entered her bedroom and sat down on the bed next to her. The mattress was new since the last time he had been on it. “What can I do to help?”

“You have $300,000 in your pocket?”

“Not in this suit, but I can get it to you tomorrow. Do you want cash or would a check be better?”

Willa stared at him slack-jawed for a moment and then began to laugh. It carried on much longer than normal and the sound was edged with hysteria. She finally wiped away the tears that had emerged. “I forget that you’re rich now. After walking past all those high school photos multiple times a day for the last several weeks and sleeping in my old bed, I’ve forgotten that we’re both not sixteen anymore.”

Chris waited to make sure she wasn’t going to break into more laughter before he started speaking again. “I can get you small unmarked nonsequential bills if you want. I’ve always wanted to ask a bank for a large sum of cash in small, unmarked nonsequential bills. It might take an extra day to get though, so if times of the essence, you might have to settle for a cashier’s check.”

Willa snickered again and bumped against Chris’s side. “I’m not taking your money.”

“Why not? I have it. You need it. So take it.”

“I can’t take three  _hundred thousand_  dollars from you. I won’t let myself be tied like that to you.”

“Is there any–,” he cut himself off with a sharp shake of the head. “You’re a friend. I can help. If you won’t let me give it to you, then let me buy out Jonathan’s interest in your bookstore, and you can owe me. I’ll be a silent partner, you continue to manage the store, and you’ll pay me back at prime plus one.”

She hesitated for just a second. “So it would be a loan.”

“Yes.”

“And prime plus one is the interest rate.”

“Right.”

“And you’re not going to refuse to take my loan payments?”

He shook his head. “I’ll take all of them. I’ll have my lawyers draw up the papers and get them to you in twenty-four hours. You’ll have the check you need in time for your next divorce hearing.”

Willa started laughing again and then abruptly stopped and lurched to her feet. “Why are you doing this?”

Chris watched as she paced back and forth. The hot pink furry rug he remembered was gone too, replaced by a more restrained floral one. “Because you’re a friend and I like helping out where I can. I don’t know anything about breast cancer, but I can at least keep you from losing your bookstore along with everything else.”

“Did you offer all of our friends down stairs $300,000 loans to see which of them could use some help?”

“No, but I’d go give all of them large amounts of cash if that’s your stipulation to allowing me to help you. I meant what I said, Willa. Anything you need. Anything at all.”

She stopped and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re still in love with me.”

Chris rested his hands on either side of him on the bed and held on to the edge of it. As much as he wanted to have this conversation he was also dreading it. “I am.”

“I was hoping that you would get over me.”

He managed to keep the hurt from showing on his face, though his heart was dazed by the pain. “Is that why you didn’t call me at all?”

She shook her head and started pacing again. “That was Jonathan’s stipulation for keeping our ‘marriage’ going while my mom was alive. I didn’t want her worrying about me instead of enjoying the time we had left together, so I asked Jonathan to keep the façade going.”

Well that explained the conversation downstairs from earlier. “Does your Dad know?”

“Of course. It was his idea actually. I told him that Jonathan and I were getting a divorce and he told me to wait until after Mom…” She wiped tears away. “He didn’t want anything disturbing her happiness. We all went to Hawaii for New Year’s. We had the big huge family vacation we kept saying we would have. Mom swam with dolphins and watched the sunrise every morning and there were huge arrangements of flowers in her room every day, and we sat on the beach and drank and told stories and it was really really nice.” She smiled for a moment and then it wavered and slid away. The view out the window caught her attention for a few moments before she sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. “And then Jonathan and I would go back to our hotel room and he’d hold me while I cried myself to sleep each night. I cried more before she died than I have since,” she added softly.

“I want to hate Jonathan, but you make it difficult to do that.”

“I want to hate Jonathan too, but I can’t. I’ll always love him. He’ll always be my Jonathan, just like you’ll always be my Chris.” She leaned against him and Chris rested his cheek on top of her head.

“Do you love me?”

Willa took his hand and clasped it softly. “Of course I love you. But am I in love? No. I’m not in love with Jonathan. I’m not in love with you. We’ve barely had any contact at all since we broke up, and the little bit we’ve had has been while I’ve been married. I couldn’t fall in love with you while I was married to someone else.”

“So we’re friends.”

“Friends. And business partners now, apparently.”

Chris sat up and turned so he was facing her. Steeling himself like he was about to rip off a bandaid, he said, “I know this is neither the time nor the place, but I have to ask you. Do you think you could ever fall in love with me again?”

Willa stared down at their joined hands for a few seconds and then let go of him. “I don’t know. I was worried that your declaration of love was spurred out of guilt over what happened. You’re not obligated to me. This isn’t the 17th century. I knew the risks when I asked you to sleep with me.”

“I didn’t say it out of guilt. I said it because I wanted you to know that I love you. I don’t think I ever really stopped.”

Willa wanted to ask if he had a box of her things squirreled away somewhere, like the box of Chris memories that sat in the corner of her office, but she didn’t. Either way, the answer would hurt. “I can’t promise anything, Chris. I just lost my mom. My marriage is ending. I just found I’m not going to lose my bookstore so I have to come up with a new set of plans there. There is so much going on right now that I have to adjust to first before I can figure out how anything – or anyone – new is going to get added into it.”

“Of course. That makes sense, and you’re right. Just, if you know you’re not going to, either now or whenever, let me know. Don’t worry about my feelings. I know myself well enough that if there’s hope I’m going to hang onto it, so just…” God, she made him feel like a teenager again. “Tell me when you know,” he finished weakly.

“I will.”

He reached to touch her face, but instead patted her on the shoulder. “It won’t affect the loan. The money is yours regardless of what happens between us.”

“I know. You’re not like that.”

He nodded sharply and then stood and rebuttoned his suit coat. “I’m going to go now before I make things any more awkward, either between us or between you and Jonathan. Just remember, if you need anything, Willa.”

“I know. I have your number.”

Chris bent and kissed her softly on the cheek. “I’ll always be here for you.”

He passed Jonathan heading up the staircase as he made his way back down to the main floor. “She’s in her room. Try and get her to eat something because I think she’s about to collapse.”

“I don’t need advice from you on how to take care of my wife.”

Chris’s hold on his temper snapped and six months of irritation was funneled into grabbing Jonathan by the suit lapels and shoving him against the wall. “Listen, I’m sorry for getting involved with her while you two were married. That was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it. But you’re getting divorced because you don’t know how to take care of her, so yes, you do need my advice. You won’t let her adopt and you were going to make her lose her bookstore. You can only cut off so many pieces of her heart before she has nothing left to love you with.”

Jonathan tried to shove Chris away, but wasn’t able to get the shorter man to loosen his grip. Instead he was forced to meet the feral blue glare of the other man a few inches from his own face. “Why do you even care?”

“Because I love her, Jonathan,” he shoved him against the wall again, “and she’s hurting, and you’re the cause of a lot of it. She still loves you and staying married to you would save her a lot of pain. Now, I’m going to go call my lawyers and get the papers written up to buy out your share of the bookstore, so if you have any hope at all of keeping her from divorcing your selfish ass, I would start putting your cards on the table now.”

“Is this how you cope with guilt? Buy a bookstore?”

Chris let go of him and stepped back as much as the stairwell would allow. “No. This isn’t guilt. I’m going to buy out your share of the loan so she has one less thing to worry about. And then she’s going to divorce you and, if I am very, very lucky, she’ll agree to date me once she’s ready. I just want her to be completely sure she wants to leave you so she brings no regrets with her if she comes to me.”

Chris was used to getting scrutinized and stood calmly as Jonathan’s scowl evolved into a softer speculative look that darted up the stairs to where Willa’s room was. “You think I still have a chance?”

Chris fought with himself before he opened his mouth. Honesty and selfishness battled like Isaac and Esau in his belly. “I wish I could say no, but if you walked into her room right now and told her you were ready to adopt, I think she would take you back.”

Jonathan rubbed his hands over his face and Chris realized that Jonathan looked as exhausted as Willa did. “You don’t understand. I don’t want  _a_  child. I want  _my_ child. I’ve always wanted to pass on part of myself, but Willa wants to be a mother. It isn’t about her, it’s about a baby.”

“Well, you better decide right now if you want Willa, because at this point she’s a package deal. It’s her and a child, or not at all. And if you think no Willa at all is better than a Willa you share with someone else, you’re a fucking idiot.” He smoothed Jonathan’s lapels and stepped back again. “So go get her something to eat.” 

He continued down the stairs and didn’t look behind him at Jonathan who stood watching him leave with a flummoxed expression. Neither one of them saw Willa standing in her doorway where she had listened to the whole conversation.


	2. Chapter 2

Jonathan sat on Willa’s bed and pulled her feet into his lap. She wasn’t asleep, just exhausted from the last few days of grief-ridden activity. Now, with the last mourner gone and her father asleep she could finally stop being the one keeping everything running. He grabbed the bottle of lotion from her nightstand and began to massage her feet, working out the aches much easier than he could fix the ones in her heart.

“That feels nice,” she murmured after a few minutes, not bothering to open her eyes.

“I won’t stop you if you want to adopt.”

Willa’s eyes flew open. “What did you just say?”

“I love you, Willa. You want to be a mother. How can I be so selfish as to deny you that?”

“But,” she sputtered, “but what about all the fights? Why now?” Had Chris really managed to convince Jonathan in a few minutes what she hadn’t been able to get from him in months?

“I don’t want to lose you. I kept thinking you would change your mind, that you wouldn’t go through with divorcing me, but I’m tired of playing chicken. If this is what you need to be happy, then go ahead and adopt.”

Willa yanked her feet away from him and scrambled to her knees so she could grab the collar of his shirt. “Threatening to take my bookstore was a game of chicken?”

“Of course not!” He shoved himself to his feet and paced her room. “This is all coming out wrong. I’m just saying that I’d rather share you with a child that’s not mine than not have you at all.”

Willa heard the echo of Chris’s words. “Is that how you would view her? Not yours?”

Jonathan folded his hands over the top of his head and kept pacing. “She wouldn’t be mine, Willa. That’s not a point of view. That’s just biology.”

Willa had heard him invoke biology so many times that she couldn’t stand it anymore. “And all those times you called me yours? Were those just a lie?”

That made him stop. “No. You were mine.  _Are_ mine. My partner. My wife. My lover.”

“She would be  _our_  child,” she pleaded with him. He had never conceded so much ground before but it was still short of what she needed from him.

“I’ll help raise her. I’ll make sure she’s always got food and clothes and shelter but she wouldn’t be ours. I’ll support you in raising her. If you want to quit and stay home with her, I’ll be good with that. But she would be yours. I’d be like a step-dad.”

“I couldn’t raise her like that. How do you explain to a child that only one of the adults in her life loved her enough to choose her when she knows that her biological parents gave her up?”

“What do you want from me, Willa? I’m trying here. I’m being honest. I’m giving you what you want.”

Willa grabbed her hair in frustration. How could he not see the difference between what he was proposing and what she needed from him? What the child would need from him. “No. No, you’re not.”

“What more do you want from me? I’m giving you everything I can.”

“I want you to make a choice.”

“I am!” he shouted. “I’m choosing you!”

“No. You keep saying its biology and you keep insisting that you love me. Well choose to love a child, too.”

“Love doesn’t work that way!”

“It does!” She knew that her father was probably awake listening to them fight, but she couldn’t care. He had wanted them to stay married until mom was dead, and they had. Now he could listen to her yell the lessons she had learned from her parents’ marriage at her soon to be ex-husband. “I know enough about biology to know that. Love is oxytocin and dopamine and a bunch of other chemicals swirling around in your brain, but that’s just about falling in love. Love, continued love, the love that lasts is a choice. You have to wake up every morning and choose to love someone, even on the days when you don’t like them. Moms give birth and they get that chemical cocktail naturally but after that it’s a choice. Fathers choose to love a child every time one is born. You have to choose to keep loving, and if you can choose to still love me after all this time, then you’re capable of choosing to love a child. So choose, Jonathan. Choose to love me and our child, regardless of how she or he comes to us, or admit it.”

“Admit what?”

She could barely get the words out. They stuck in her throat like foxtails on socks. “Admit you don’t really love me.”

“Love isn’t getting everything you want.”

“I know.” It was over. They would keep talking but she knew that they were over. He wouldn’t lie to her and promise to love a child he couldn’t father, and she wouldn’t let a child settle for anything less than love from however many parents it had. “But love is getting the things that matter.”

“And I don’t matter,” he said, his voice as bitter as new greens.

“You matter, Jonathan. But I matter more.” Maybe their desperate attempt at marriage counseling had done some good. Not for their marriage, but for her.

“And he calls  _me_  selfish.”

“It’s not selfish to insist on what you really need,” she said softly. She was mostly talking to herself anyway.

“And you don’t need me.”

“I loved you for a long time, Jonathan. I’m a better person because of you. I have my bookstore because of you. But you’re right; I don’t need you. I just need me.”

Jonathan nodded slowly. Resignedly. Like he had been a fool for hoping. His shoulders slumped and he couldn’t look at her.  “I’m going to go back home…back to the farm now. I’ve been gone too long as it is. When will Chris have you the money to buy me out of the bookstore?”

“He said twenty-four hours.” She wouldn’t insult him by pretending not to know what he was talking about.

“I’ll have my lawyer call your lawyer in a few days then, and we’ll get the final paperwork started.”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan.” It was the truth.

“So am I.” That was, too.

* * *

Chris stopped pretending to work as Todd ushered Willa into his office. He’d been anxiously waiting for this meeting all day, woefully neglecting all of the projects he had going as he read mindlessly through emails. His brain had been occupied coming up with a thousand reasons for Willa to request this meeting other than the one for which he hoped.

Chris stood as she walked across his office and held out his hand. She shook it and took the chair he offered. It was leather and metal and undoubtedly cost as much as her rent. She declined Todd’s offer of a drink and they looked at each other without saying anything else as Todd left the room.

“So, Willa,” he began after the door had clicked shut, “what brings you here today?

Willa slid an envelope across the top of Chris’s desk. “It’s this month’s payment.”

Chris took the envelope and placed it in a drawer without looking in it. “Thank you. Any particular reason you decided to deliver this one in person?” The last three had been delivered in the mail, always early, always rounded up to the next one hundred dollars. It was the only contact she had made with him since the funeral.

Willa tucked back the section of her bangs that was now long enough to fit behind her ear. “Well,” her hand clutched the smooth frame of the chair, “you keep saying that if I need anything I can ask you.”

“I mean it.”

“Before I say this, I want you to know that my divorce is final.” She pulled a packet of papers out of her purse and held them out to him. “That’s the divorce decree if you want to see it.”

Chris shook his head. “I believe you.”

“I need you to know that Jonathan and I are completely finished before I ask this of you. So,” she put the papers on her lap and smoothed them several times, “now that you know that, would you be willing to,” she stopped and buried her face in her hands.

“What is it?” The news that her and Jonathan were finally divorced came as a huge relief but he couldn’t imagine what she could possibly need that would have her this worked up.

She looked at him through her fingers. “Can I have your sperm?”

Chris’s face went through a range of movements as he tried to process what she had just asked. His brain couldn’t make sense of it, no matter how hard he tried. “Say again?”

“I want your sperm.”

It still wasn’t making sense. “My sperm.”

She couldn’t quite meet his gaze, focusing instead on his eyebrows. “Yes.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds. He obviously was missing something here. Over the years he had entertained several outlandish proposals from people seeking something from him, but this was a new one. “Are you asking to have sex with me?”

Willa stifled a soft gasp. “No! I’ve decided that I’m going to have a baby, and I want to know if you’ll be the sperm donor.”

Even though it now made sense, he still couldn’t believe that he was hearing this from her. “You want me to father your child?”

“Nooooo. No no no. Well,” she paused for a second, “yes. But,” she hurried on before he could say respond, “you wouldn’t be involved at all. I wouldn’t ask that of you. It’s just that I would like to know something about –,”

“No.”

She blinked a few times at his sudden interruption. “What?”

“I’m not going to be a sperm donor and disappear. If you want to have my child, I get to be the father  _and_  the dad.”

She smoothed her hands over the divorce papers again, even though they hadn’t moved. “You would want that?”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. How could she even ask that of him? “Of course I would want to be involved in my child’s life. What kind of an asshole wouldn’t?”

Willa gave him an acerbic look and Chris sank back into his chair. Right. Jonathan. Willa with an ex was something he would have to get used to. Some things about her hadn’t changed, but her history definitely had. She would have bruises he wouldn’t know existed until he managed to bash into them all unthinking.

She stared out the window for a long moment, out at the wetland that Chris often contemplated when he wanted to collect his thoughts. “And if I don’t want you involved?” she asked quietly.

The idea pained him. The idea that she wouldn’t want him involved not only in her life but in the child’s. “Why wouldn’t you want me involved?”

“You might change your mind.”

“Would you change your mind about being involved in your child’s life?”

“Of course not.”

“I won’t either.”

She sat back in her chair and he did as well. They stared at each other unblinking for a few seconds.

“So it’s a package deal,” Willa finally said.

“Yes.”

She rubbed the knuckle of her thumb against her mouth as she looked anywhere but at him.

“Willa.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s a  _full_  package deal. Me, you, a child. I can’t give you a baby without getting your heart in return.”

“But you said if I needed anything.”

He shook his head. “Not this, Willa. A baby isn’t a thing.”

“Even if that’s the only way I’ll let you be involved in my life?”

Chris had built a sandcastle as a small child. It had been the source of hours of happiness but he hadn’t seen the tide coming in until a wave washed it away in one fell swoop. Hearing those words from her made him feel like that child again. “Yes.”

She turned the package of papers over and over and Chris couldn’t see her face. When she finally looked up at him, she was smiling. “That’s good to know.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I just had to make sure you were going to stand up to me if I decided to date you. That whole having a piece of her is better than not having her at all speech you gave Jonathan had me worried that you were going to be a pushover.”

Chris stood and circled his desk so he was standing right in front of her, so close that she had to tilt her head back to see him. “Let me see if I understand you. You came in here and asked me to be your sperm donor as a test?”

“Yes.”

Chris silently counted to ten before he opened his mouth. Even then, he only dared part his lips. His teeth stayed clenched together. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Leave before I say something I can’t take back.”

Willa shoved the chair back as she stood so she wouldn’t bump into him. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Why am I mad at you? You mess with me like that and you think it’s okay?”

“I had to protect myself!”

“From me?” He gestured at himself curtly, in disbelief at what he was hearing.

“Yes! From you!” Her hand movements were much more dramatic. She’d always been the dramatic one. It was one of the things he had always loved about her – he always knew exactly where he stood because she never hid her feelings. That was part of the reason that her testing him had been so surprising. “You say you love me and you don’t even know who I am anymore! How am I supposed to know that you’re not going to be a wacko about it if we start dating? That you’re not going to have me on some pedestal?”

“Don’t worry. If I had you up on a pedestal you definitely just fell off of it.”

She recoiled like his words had been a physical blow. “I thought I knew Jonathan.” She was much quieter now. “I thought I understood him. And then we end up getting divorced over irreconcilable differences. How am I supposed to trust anyone now? How am I supposed to believe in a forever now?”

Chris’s anger collapsed. No wonder she was leery of pursuing another relationship. She had loved Jonathan enough to marry him and move to a farm and have roosters for an alarm clock and it hadn’t been enough. What cost would her next attempt at finding happiness exact? “Is that what you’re worried about? That there aren’t happy endings anymore?”

“I’m worried that you’re too capable of being Prince Charming and rescuing me from all my problems.”

“I’m not supposed to rescue you?” Chris had absolutely no idea where this conversation was going or what she wanted from him anymore. That was assuming she wanted anything from him at all, ever again.

“No! Well, sort of. I don’t know.” Willa threw up her hands in frustration. She stalked over to the bar cart and poured herself a glass of whatever was in the most expensive looking bottle to have something to do with her hands while her tongue sorted out her brain.  “It’s just that you keep saying you’ll give me anything and Jonathan wouldn’t do that and it ended our marriage, but I don’t think the other way would work either and I wanted to make sure you would stand up to me.”  She took a gulp of whatever was in her glass and then stopped and picked up the bottle to read the label. His taste in alcohol had definitely improved since high school.

Chris leaned back against the edge of his desk and rubbed his hands tiredly over his face. It was like she didn’t even remember who he was. “Willa.”

“Chris,” she muttered back, matching his exasperation heave for sigh.

“Have you ever known me to back down from a fight with you?”

She took a sip of her drink. “No.”

“What have you always said was my most infuriating habit?”

A smile flitted over her face and disappeared. “Your overwillingness to tell the truth.” She had taken him shopping with her for jeans once.  _Once._ Never again.

“That hasn’t changed.”

She poured a glass for Chris and took it to him where he still sat on the edge of his desk. “Is that why you told Jonathan he still had a chance with me?”

“He told you that?”

“I overheard you two talking.”

Chris took a careful swallow of scotch as he ran over that conversation in his memory, trying to remember what all he had said. He didn’t think it painted in him too bad of a light. “You’d just lost your mom. I didn’t want you losing anyone else you loved if I could prevent it.”

“Even if meant your own happiness?” Every night since the funeral she had wondered how Chris could have encouraged Jonathan to pursue her. It had been her biggest doubt.

He had tortured himself over those words every day as he waited for a phone call that didn’t come. “That’s what love is, right? Putting someone else’s happiness above your own?”

Willa wanted to believe him, but to do so made her doubt her own decisions. “Then shouldn’t I have stayed with Jonathan? Put what he wanted first?”

“No.” Chris’s answer was immediate.

“Why not?”

His first instinct was to say, ‘Because I don’t want you with him, I want you with me,’ but he knew that would fall short at resolving the worries he could see in her eyes. When she looked at him with pleading in their depths, he would crawl on his hands and knees through the desert to make her problems go away. Chris took another drink as he tried to figure out the words she needed to hear. “Because love is about both people sacrificing for each other. You moved out to Gilroy. He helped you get your bookstore. With a child, there’s nothing he could do to balance out how much you wanted that.”

“There really wasn’t. I just couldn’t see my future without a child in it.” Her chin trembled even as she fought to keep it steady. “I tried so hard.” Willa needed him to believe that.  She needed him to believe that she hadn’t just given up on her marriage because he had crooked his finger at her.

Chris carefully tucked back the lock of hair that had fallen forward again and left his fingers curled against her cheek. “I know you did.”

She rested there for a moment, her face cradled in his hand, soaking up the scarce physical affection. “Can you see your future without me in it?”

“Yes. I’ve been seeing it that way since you walked away in the airport. I can’t control you, Willa. I can’t make you choose me.” He traced his fingers over her cheekbones, along her jaw, fearing that this might be the last time he was afforded the privilege of touching her. “I can hope. I can plan. I have an idea of what it might be like to have you in my life again. Like I said before, I’ll hang on to hope until you tell me to stop. So tell me to stop, Willa.” His thumb rested against her lips. “I can be happy without you, but you have to tell me to give up.”  

Carefully she set her drink on his desk. She didn’t want to spill it if her hands started shaking or she needed to leave in a rush. “Can I ask you one more question?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Does it have to do with sperm?”

His grin called forth an actual happy smile. “Possibly.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction but he decided to trust her not to repeat her previous mistake, especially since she hadn’t moved away from his touch. “Go ahead.”

“Would you like to take me out on a date this Friday at seven pm?” Her words were the first half of a heart beat.

“Yes, I would.”

His were the second. 

She reached past him to get the notepad off of his desk and then placed it on his chest while she wrote down her new address. Carefully she tore off the sheet of paper and then folded it in half. “Don’t give up hope yet,” she said softly as she slipped it into his shirt pocket.

He caught her hand as it rested over his heart and held it for a moment. “I won’t.”

Willa smiled, picked up her purse, and walked out of his office.

Chris knew he was going to get absolutely nothing done for the rest of the week.


	3. Chapter 3

Willa ran her hands over her hips, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles before she opened the front door. Chris was standing there, wearing a suit without a tie and holding a bouquet of orange roses. Her stomach flipped and then flopped and then flipped again, just like it had the first time he had picked her up for a date years ago. “Hello.” She mentally kicked herself. Hello? This was her date, not a customer looking for something new to read. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He held out the flowers to her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She took the flowers and buried her face in them for a moment. They were so different from the wildflowers Jonathan would bring her from the fields. “These are the same ones you brought me on our first date.”

“I thought it would be a nice gesture. Some things are the same for us, but some things are very different.”

“You’re probably not driving your dad’s car tonight.”

He laughed and ran his thumb over the jaguar embossed on the key in his pocket. “No. No, I’m not.”

She shook her head in dismay as she realized she hadn’t invited him in yet. “Where are my manners? Why don’t you come in while I put these in some water and then we can go?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but retreated into her kitchen. It took her three cabinets before she realized that she didn’t have a real vase. She didn’t even have any mason jars. She settled on the hand-blown glass water pitcher she had bought at a farmer’s market back when her and Jonathan were dating and put the roses in that. No matter how she fiddled with them, she couldn’t make them look right. It was the symbolism bothering her – an annoying side effect of a literature degree– not the actual arrangement, but she couldn’t make herself stop. Finally she grabbed the glass jar she stored rice in, emptied it into a bowl, and put the roses in that. Much less elegant, but more symbolically satisfying.

Willa came out of her tiny kitchen carrying the roses to find Chris standing restlessly in the middle of her equally diminutive living room. The night she had stayed at his house she had spent forty-five minutes wandering around opening doors and cupboards before finally settling in one of the guest rooms. He looked ridiculously out of place in her cramped but comfortable apartment.

“You have a nice place here. It’s really,” he stopped as he searched for a word.

“Just go ahead and say it.” She knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Small.”

Willa put the vase of flowers on the coffee table she had found at a thrift store. “Yeah. It came with an alarm clock, though.”

“Where are the rest of your books?”

“In my bedroom.”

He brushed a hand over a shelf of paperbacks, stacked in piles double deep.  “I knew you had to have more than these three bookshelves.”

“I think I had more than that when we were dating the first time around.”

“I think you did too.”

Willa took a deep breath and told her stomach to settle down. It was just Chris; going on a date shouldn’t be this nervewracking. And yet, the expectations for what tonight could lead to, both tonight and in terms of a future, had her fretting and fidgety. “It’s kind of odd, dating you again. I can’t decide if this is a first date or not.”

Chris took her hand and held it. “Are you nervous?”

Willa focused on his bright blue eyes; this was her Christopher. He’d never done anything to hurt her. He’d been a solid support for her. He’d saved her bookstore. When she focused on him and the present moment of him standing in front of her with his fingers interwoven with her, all the worries faded into silence. “Not at all. How could I be nervous with you? You asked me out the first time when I was wearing braces, and you already know what I look like first thing in the morning.”

“You look beautiful.”

Willa laughed and stroked the lapel of his suit coat. “That’s the one time you lie.”

“Not a lie. I’ve always thought you were beautiful.” He laughed and ran his hand over his hair. “I was so nervous the first time I asked you out.”

Willa flashed back to that moment by her locker. He’d been walking with her after AP English for the last week, and hemming and hawing while she swapped textbooks, but it was that day when he managed to finally get out the words, “I was wondering if maybe if you’re not busy, I mean, you probably are, but if you’re not busy Friday if maybe you would want to like, go out and get something to eat with me? I totally understand if you don’t want to, that’s fine.” She’d had to tell him yes three times before he stopped apologizing for asking her and realized that she had said yes.

Her smile was full of laughter. “I could tell, but I thought it was cute.”

He didn’t respond right away but his hand tightened around hers and he gently tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “Do you ever think about how different our lives would have been if we had tried harder to make it work?”

She couldn’t stop looking at him. His eyes held her gaze, eliciting more than a throwaway response. When she managed to respond, it was with a tremulous voice. “I’ve thought about that a lot over the last nine months or so and I came to the conclusion that this was for the best. You have your amazing life and I have my bookstore and I don’t know if we would have that if we had stayed together. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. And maybe I just believe that to keep myself from going crazy, but I can’t focus on the what if’s of my past. I just know that I’m not going to miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of the what if’s of my future.”

“Like ‘what if we make it work this time?’”

There was a softness to her smile she hadn’t felt in months as she nodded. “Exactly.”

He squeezed her hand and then let it go. “I wasn’t sure what time you had to be at the store tomorrow so I made two sets of plans.”

She could be more flippant now, the spell of his earnestness having evaporated with the removal of his touch. “I took advantage of being the one making the schedules to give myself tomorrow off.”

“Then we’ll go for plan A.”

“And what is plan A?”

“The best steak in the Bay Area, followed by dancing.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“Then let’s go.”

* * *

Willa smiled as Chris placed her dinner in front of her. “Well, it certainly smells promising, but you do realize that ‘best steak in the Bay Area’ is going to a difficult title to claim.”

“I think the dish stands on its own merits,” Chris said as he poured her a glass of wine.

She took a sip of it and a curious expression crossed her face. She took another sip and then smiled. “This is the wine that we had in New York, isn’t it?”

Chris nodded as he put his napkin in his lap. “You’ll develop a palate yet.”

“Is this something you already had in your cellar? Do you have an actual wine cellar?”

“Not an actual cellar; more of an ambitious closet. And no, it’s something I bought special for this evening.”

Willa wondered if every detail of those two days was permanently embossed on his memory the way it was on hers. A flush came over her as she thought about their time together, and the way he had made her feel like a woman again. “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”

“I remember you saying you liked it. I’m a little surprised you didn’t find the wine closet when you stayed here that one night.”

“Wh…why…what…”

Chris laughed as Willa spluttered. “You can’t even deny it.”

Willa gave up trying as heat crept up the back of her neck and tinted her ears. “I’m not going to be able to deny anything with you, am I?”

“Nope. I know you too well. It’s why I didn’t bother giving you a tour of the house. I knew you’d looked it all over already.”

“I must have missed the wine closet, though. I don’t remember seeing that.”

“It’s nice to know I still have a few secrets of my own.” He picked up his fork and knife. “Now try your steak. I’m anxious for your verdict.”

He watched as she cut into the filet. It had a perfect warm pink center. She took a bite and he waited as she chewed and swallowed. “Well?”

“I hope you weren’t planning on having sex tonight.”

“What? No, but–  Is it bad?” He had made steak for years and had perfected his skills through trial and error. He had been confident in this dish. Why had it let him down in his moment of need?

She laughed. “No. It’s amazing! I think it may satisfy every single one of my carnal urges though.”

Chris laughed in relief as he cut into his own food. “That good, huh?”

“Definitely best steak I’ve ever had. Even better than the one in New York.” She took another bite and this time let her enjoyment show on her face. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned softly. “So good.”

Chris adjusted his napkin in his lap. That was more of the reaction he had been hoping for.

“It’s a good thing this isn’t a real first date. I would have been too nervous to eat anything.”

“This is a real first date.”

Willa’s disbelief was evident on her face. “How many other women have you cooked for on a first date?”

“Um, well, none.”

“Exactly.” She took a sip of her wine. “Have you even let any of them in your house on a first date?”

He scratched the back of his neck and smiled up at her sheepishly. “No.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Besides, you already know where my g-spot is.”

Chris barely managed to keep from spitting his wine across the table as he choked back a laugh. “I’d forgotten how dangerous it is to drink around you.”

“I don’t think wine would hurt as much coming out your nose as Coke does, though.”

“God that burned so bad. My face hurt for the rest of the day.”

“It’d be a pity to waste something this expensive shooting it out your nose.”

He raised an eyebrow in reproach. “Willa.”

She scrunched her face as she realized what she had done. “Ummm, it’d be a pity to waste something this delicious shooting it out your nose?”

“Better.”

The rest of dinner was easy and spent mostly figuring out which books, movies, and music the other person hadn’t been exposed to and making plans to remedy the glaring lacunae in the other person’s cultural knowledge. Afterwards, Chris took Willa out to the back yard. He pressed a few buttons on a pad near the back door and the area lit up with discreetly placed lamps that illuminated a terraced yard with multiple patios, a large swimming pool, and a grassy yard.  

“This is really…” She trailed off as she searched for a word.

Chris chuckled as he watched her struggle. “Go ahead and say it.”

“Sterile?”

That was not the word he had been expecting. Chris looked around at all the trees that provided both shade and privacy. Carefully tended flower beds encircled the border of the yard. “How is this sterile? There’s plants all over.”

“Do you live here?”

“Uh, yes?” He answered tentatively.

“I know that’s a weird question because you obviously live here, but do you  _live_ here?”

“I’m not sure what the distinction is that you’re trying to make.”

Willa instinctively reached for her wedding ring to twist nervously, but her finger was bare. She ended up knotting her fingers together like she was playing cat’s cradle. “So you know I snooped.”

“Right.”

“You have a beautiful house, but when I was wandering around, the only rooms that looked like they got used were your bedroom and your office. I didn’t go in either, because I didn’t want to intrude, but there’s nothing personal in the rest of your house. There’s no photos –,”

“I keep them on my iPad.”

“Or books.”

“iPad.”

“And that’s where your music is too?”

“It’s all networked. I can access all of my media anywhere in the house.”

“Souvenirs?”

“That was never really my thing.”

“Hmmm.”  She turned away from him and looked out over the yard. It was perfectly manicured and it reminded her of nothing so much as a golf course. Each blade of grass was the same height and stood at attention with all of its identical mates.

“I do have that copy of  _O, Pioneers_  you gave me, if that’s what this is about.”

“No, it isn’t, but I’m glad you still have it. It’s just –,” She ran her hand through her hair and made a noise that sounded like a growl. “How long has it been since you’ve used your pool?”

“Uh, probably a year?”

Willa slowly shook her head. “This is why you need me in your life.” She kicked off her sandals and reached behind herself find the zipper for her dress.

Chris watched in confusion. “What is why I need you in my life?”

She turned around and wiggled her shoulders. “Unzip me.”

“Um, okay.” He unzipped her dress and she shrugged it off, leaving her in just her bra and panties.

“Stop staring and take your clothes off,” Willa urged with a laugh as she draped her dress over one of the lounge chairs.

She was worth staring at in the simple but cute navy blue underwear. “Are we going swimming?”

“Yes, we’re going swimming.” She unfastened her earrings and placed them on the table. “All work and no play makes Christopher very very rich, but also boring.”

“You think I’m boring?” The pace of his hands quickened as he undid the buttons on his shirt.

“I think you work hard and you forget to play. You knew that I snooped without asking. I know that you haven’t taken a holiday for fun in at least five years.”

“How do you know that?” He sat on the end of a lounge chair and pulled off his shoes and socks before unbuckling his belt.

“Because you’re a planner and you always have a thousand ideas swirling around in your head and you’re always onto the next project. I was the one who had to convince you to take our road trip because you wanted to get a head start on your reading for your first year of college.”

“It was MIT! I needed to be prepared.”

“You also needed two weeks with me and roadside fruit stands and rainbows and the Grand Canyon and standing in four states at once and flat pillows in cheap hotels and highways that went straight to the horizon and beckoned with dreams of what might be.”

Chris stood motionless as Willa pulled memories out of his mind and flung them in vibrant color around him. He could feel the wind in his hair and taste the cactus milkshake they had shared in some tiny town in New Mexico.  He could see Willa curled up asleep as the sun came in through the gaps in the worn curtains and gilded her hair. The cold shock of the outdoor shower they had shared after hiking through a desert landscape peopled with Joshua trees and jackrabbits. The way she had sat cross-legged on the trunk of the car and drank her red and blue Icee and waved at the truckers while he looked at the map to figure out where they were and how far they could go before they would have to stop for the night.

He finished taking off his pants and set them on the chair. “You’re right, you know. I can be boring.” He scooped her up in his arms and walked towards the pool. “But not tonight. Not with you.”

Willa wrapped her arms around him. “Not with me.”

“Never with you.” He kissed her once and then said, “Hold your breath.” He ran and jumped into the deep end of the pool. They both came up gasping for air and laughing. Willa struck out for shallower water and Chris followed her.

“Now what?” she asked as they both stood looking at each other with water dripping from their hair and fingers.

“Stay right there.”

She watched him exit the pool and run over to the pad by the door. He punched a few buttons and the lights in the pool came on and soft music started playing. She laughed as she recognized the song. “We danced to this at prom!”

Chris nodded and waded back to where she was. “Dance with me?”

“In the pool?”

“Why not? I don’t have to worry about dropping you if I try to dip you.” He held out his hands and she took them.  It started as a simple slow dance as they instinctively held each other the way they had so many years ago, but as Chris led them to deeper water, he kissed her, and when she twined her arms around his neck, he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him as well. They kissed and sang along and kissed some more, through Verve Pipe and Jewel and songs they hadn’t heard in years but for some reason still remembered every word. And as they danced and kissed and sang along they also talked, about what they had meant to each other and how they had drifted apart.

“I need you in my life, Willa,” Chris finally said. “I want you in my life.”

“I feel the same way.”

She shivered and Chris hugged her against his chest. “Right now you feel cold. I may be boring but I think it’s time to get out.”

Willa held up her wrinkled fingers and wiggled them. “I think you’re right.”

“Have you already explored the cabana?”

Willa looked around and saw a small building over to the side of the pool with glass doors. “Nope. I missed that.”

“Then come on.” He didn’t let go of her as he climbed out of the pool and Willa clung to him, not wanting to be apart from him yet. “You’ll love the shower in here. It’s like bathing in a waterfall.”

Willa kissed the side of his neck and then whispered in his ear.

Chris grinned and tightened his grip on her ass. “Yes, it’s big enough for two.”


	4. Chapter 4

Chris had been telling the truth; it was very much like showering in a waterfall. The stone walls were open to the sky overhead, letting them bathe in the starlight, guarded by towering trees, serenaded by grasshoppers and frogs.

Willa unhooked her bra as Chris adjusted the temperature of the water cascading down from a rocky outcropping. The walls radiated back the absorbed heat of the sun, hiding the lateness of the hour and reminding her of a shower they had shared years before. “Do you know what I’m thinking about?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She laughed at the rough note to his voice. “That was the first time I ever managed to,” she paused and started laughing again. “God, I was so nervous I was going to do it wrong or hurt you.”

“I’ll never forget the look of surprise on your face.”

“I didn’t realize you were that close. I thought it would be different.”

He stepped under the water and let it splash off of his shoulders. “Different how?”

“I don’t know. Like you would have been louder or something.”

He laughed and color crept up his neck. “I was desperately trying not to scare you,” he admitted as he ducked his head.

“Well, you didn’t. Definitely surprised me though. All of a sudden there was this stuff in my mouth! And I was like, ‘Oh my god! Did I actually do it right?’”

“You definitely did it right.”

Willa slipped out of her panties and tossed them back into the cabana. They landed close to where her bra had ended up.  She stepped into the cascading water and gasped as the hot water splashed over her skin.

“Too hot?” Chris asked and reached for the faucet.

“No. It’s perfect.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him under the water with her. “Everything’s perfect.” She dropped a quick kiss on his chin and then stepped back. “Well, _almost_ everything.”

“What’s not perfect?”

“You’ve still got your underwear on.”

“You told me not to expect sex tonight.”

She blithely shrugged and ducked her head under the water to rinse the smell of chlorine from her hair. “Well, it’s been a couple hours. I’m hungry again.”

Chris watched silently as Willa danced to the music drifting into their shower while rinsing off. She finally draped her arms around his neck and pulled him into the song.

“What time do you have to be home tonight?” he asked as they swayed together.

Her cheeks hurt from how much she had been smiling. “I don’t have a curfew.”

He grinned and grabbed her hips, pulling her flush with his body. “Do you think you can sleep over?”

“Yeah, my dad’s pretty cool. He won’t mind.”

“I’m glad.” He kissed her and she worked her fingers into the wet waistband of his briefs and shoved them downward. As soon as she had them off, he pulled away from the kiss and grabbed her hands. “I think I’m done showering.”

“You don’t want a sequel?” She batted her eyelashes at him playfully.

“Not as much as I want to see you in my bed. I need to see you in my bed, Willa.”

His smooth voice was ragged from the wear of months of patient waiting and Willa nodded quickly. “You’ll just have to shower out here with me some other time, then.”

“Another time.”

She kissed him softly. “We’ll have another time.”

They wrapped themselves in towels and Chris chased Willa back into the house.  When they got to his bedroom, Willa hesitated and let Chris go in first. She had peeked in here before, but crossing the threshold into the room felt like another level of intimacy had been established. She took three steps into the room and then smacked his arm. “You lied to me!”

Chris stopped in his tracks and grabbed his towel to keep it from falling. “What?”

Willa pointed. “You totally _were_ expecting sex. You made the bed!”

Chris laughed and then grabbed her, carried her to the bed, and unceremoniously dumped her upon it.  “It’s quite possible that in the time we’ve been apart that I’ve learned how to make a bed.”

She squinted up at him and then grabbed one of the pillows and dramatically sniffed it. “This pillowcase smells like laundry detergent. You put on clean sheets. That’s not making the bed. That’s getting ready for sex.”

He confiscated the incriminatory item. “You need to stop reading Miss Marple. And I wasn’t expecting sex; I was being prepared on the off chance that it happened.”

“Well, I hope you prepared in other ways, too.”

Chris arched an eyebrow at her and then opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a box of condoms.

“You’re a _good_ Boy Scout.”

Chris dropped the box and climbed on top of her. She held her breath as his hands smoothed over her shoulders and down her arms until their fingers were intertwined. With deliberate speed, he pressed their hands to the bed before he leaned down and pulled open her towel with his teeth. “Not a Boy Scout.” His mouth closed over her breast and her flippant response died in her throat.

He definitely wasn’t a Boy Scout. Not with the way his stubbled chin rubbed over her nipples and down her stomach, not with the way his mouth left scorching kisses across her skin, not with the way he shouldered apart her thighs and feasted on her like she was a dying man’s last meal. There was no merit badge for causing multiple orgasms with just your tongue and fingers. She was fairly certain Boy Scouts helped little old ladies across the street, not made them cry in ecstasy, didn’t make them grateful they were still on top of her towel as she gushed for the first time ever, and then for second time that night.

By the time he finally entered her she was weak and trembling, but his kisses kept her going, fed her the energy she needed to lift and twist underneath him, to bring their bodies into perfect alignment, to push back against each thrust, to echo each of his groans with her own gasps, to clutch frantically at his arms in an attempt to hold onto reality and make the exquisite agony of her body melting and contracting and drawing taut last.

Just a little longer. 

Another few seconds.

His voice was inside her head. “Come for me, Willa. Come one more time for me, gorgeous.” It echoed in her body, stroking velvet furred fingers over her skin.  Her vision faded around the edges, blurred, shifted, until all she could see was his deep blue eyes and the strain on his face as he tried to outlast her. She gave up.

Gave in.

Cried out.

Clung to his sweaty shoulders and watched his face like the revelation of an angel as he groaned and thrust and came within her, his expression an amalgam of sweet agony and relief.

>< 

Their faces were just a few inches apart on the pillow as they gazed at each other.  The sweat was gone and they were under the blankets now, but neither one was touching the other. 

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice quiet and deep in the moonlight streaming into the room.

Willa pulled the blanket up over her face. “You caught me at an embarrassing moment,” she muttered.

Chris tugged the blanket back down, smiling as he saw the flush of color staining her cheeks. “What were you thinking, Cather?”

She covered her face with one hand and then peered through her fingers. “That I hope our babies have your eyes.”

Chris laughed at her obvious discomfort. “Skipping ahead a bit there, aren’t you?”

“I said it was embarrassing.” She was still hiding behind one hand. “And I promise I don’t see you as just a sperm donor or a baby daddy, but you really do have beautiful eyes.”

He brushed her bangs back and kissed her forehead. “I hope they have your hair.” He hooked a finger around her hand and tugged it away from her face.

“All these years and you still haven’t learned how to accept a compliment, have you?”

“I never know what to say.” Now he was the one to look uncomfortable.

“I believe ‘thank you’ is customary.”

“Then thank you.”

She scrutinized him for a few seconds before making a decision. “I’m going to compliment you all the time until you can say thank you without blushing or going all bashful.”

“Willa.”

She ignored the warning note in his voice. “Though it is awfully cute when your cheeks turn pink and the back of your neck gets all blotchy.” She brushed her fingertips over the skin in question.

“Am I going to have to kiss you to shut you up?”

Laughter burbled up again. “I seem to remember you relying on that tactic a lot.”

He kissed her then, kissed her to silence and beyond, until both of them had forgotten what had started them kissing. He stroked her hair back from her face, smoothing the disarray that he had bestowed upon it, gazing down at her as she smiled up at him from his pillow. “You’re really here,” he whispered, almost to himself.

“I am.”  She rubbed her hands over his chest and shoulders, wanting to reassure him of her reality. Of the reality they were sharing.

“You’re here on your pillow. Your pillow in my bed. The way I’ve been dreaming of for months.”

Her kiss was gentle. “I have to confess that for the last few months, I’ve been kicking myself for not getting a better look at your bedroom when I had the chance so I could imagine this night better.”

“We’ve both been looking forward to tonight for a long time, and that’s why I think we should set up some ground rules.”

Willa’s forehead crinkled and her smile disappeared. “Rules?”

“Yes, rules. And I know I’m the boring one, but this whole first date/not first date situation calls for some guidelines.”

“As long as one of them is that I get to compliment you whenever I want.”

Chris dropped his head and sighed in defeat. “Fine, but –,”

 “No buts. I get to compliment you and you have to say thank you before you kiss me to shut me up.”

He sighed again, and Willa could see him wondering what he was getting himself into. “That’s acceptable,” he warily conceded.

She smiled sweetly. “You have a really cute butt.”

“Thank you.”

Her smile widened into a grin. “And I think the little bit of grey you have is really sexy.”

“Thank you.”

She rubbed the back of his calf with her foot. “You’re even better in bed than in the kitchen.”

“Willa?”

“What?”

“I know you hate rules and guidelines and plans, but we need to do this.”

She was mostly successful at not snickering. “You have to say thank you first.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Thank you.” He continued on quickly before she could compliment him again. “Now, the first rule I’m proposing is because of what you’ve brought up several times, about us not knowing each other after twelve years apart. Neither one of us says ‘I love you’ for at least a month. We need time to relearn each other.”

Willa sighed in relief and nodded. Her biggest fear had been that he would misinterpret her willingness to fall into his bed as a declaration of love.  “Thank you. I think that’s smart.”

“And I don’t think we should talk about a future together for at least six months. No babies, no getting married, nothing permanent. I want to make sure that if we do this, we’re doing it because we really do love each other. And I want time with you, to be just me and you for a bit before we think about becoming anything more.”

She nodded again.  It was no surprise that he had thought about it this much, that he had a plan for them. He was always thinking years down the road while she had focused on the next thing. “That’s smart too.”

“And one last one.”

“Just one?” She giggled and he raised that eyebrow again. It all felt so familiar.

“You’re not allowed to question, comment on, or criticize how I spend my money, and especially how I spend it on you.”

“Chris.” This had been her other concern, that their different financial situations would be a chasm they couldn’t bridge.

“No. I’m a grown man. I employ several hundred people and have millions of dollars in assets. I know what I’m doing with money and I have the right to spoil you a bit if I want.”

“Just a bit though.”

He kissed her firmly. “I’m not going to do anything that would make you uncomfortable. I wouldn’t do that to you. But if we go on a road trip or something, I will pay for nice hotels and good wine and I might possibly buy you a few more first editions.”

She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I think I can be okay with that. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“I know, but I need you to do this for me. You have to let me be an adult.”

“You were always an adult. Even in high school you were an adult.”

“And you didn’t trust me with my money back then, either. I don’t need a mother, Willa, and I swear that if we get to the point where I buy you an engagement ring and you tell me I shouldn’t have spent so much on it, I’m taking it back and the whole thing is over.”

As familiar as so much of the night had been, this was a side of him that she had never seen before. “You’re really serious about this.”

There was a pronounced set to his jaw when he answered. “Yes.”

“Okay.” She was still not quite sure about this unfamiliar aspect of him but she would give it time. This was one of the reasons she had insisted that they didn’t know each other. “I’ll learn to trust you with your money, or at least keep my mouth shut about it.”

“I’ll hope for the first and be satisfied with the second.”

“The only time I’ll have something to say about your money is when it comes to what you invest in the bookstore. That’s my baby and I get to have a say when it comes to her.”

“Of course. “ His kiss was reassuring. “I’ll still be a silent partner there.”

They studied each other for a few seconds. “So, I guess it’s time now,” she said.

“Time for what?”

“To find out if reality lives up to our imaginations.”

Chris grinned and kissed her again. “For the last three days all I’ve been able to think about is what tonight might be like, and I had my best possible outcome scenario –,”

“Of course you did,” she whispered with a gentle kiss.

“I have to say, this is better than what I hoped for.”

“Me too. This is better than Anne of Green Gables.” Her smile was radiant and achingly unfamiliar.

“Probably still not allowed to call you Carrots, am I?”

She gave him her best Rachel Lynde gimlet-eyed glare. “Only if you want me to break your tablet over your head.”

He wrapped a lock of her copper hair around his finger. “I’m sure I’ve got an old iPad around here somewhere you could use.”

She shook her head but smiled nonetheless. “I’d rather not break anything over your head. I’m rather fond of it.” She threaded her fingers into his disheveled hair and cradled the back of his head as she kissed his forehead. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For waiting for me to be ready. Again.”

“You’re worth waiting for.” He kissed her again, and she curled around him, intertwining their bodies so they could feel each other breathing.

One more kiss. One more gentle caress. One more breath taken from the other’s lungs. “Here’s to not waiting anymore.”

_The End_


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